Celebrating Durga puja / Dussehra away from home @ Sydney

Durga Puja or Dussehra is one of the biggest festivals in India, Puja means festival and Durga being the godess, celebrated almost all parts of India, specially the Bengal where the entire city dresses up to its best to celebrate the victory of Good over the Evil. This was my first Durga Puja outside India and I found a place in Sydney where the local groups celebrate Durga Puja. So we visited the Concord School – the venue for the puja celebration.

It was a very good preparation with food and some cool jewelleries and stuffs to buy. It was very exciting to see so many Indians here in Sydney traditionally dressed. The food arrangements we very good. Though they were not very authentic tasting but were pretty good in taste so i will give them all points.

Even with a huge number of devotees the Pandit (priest) still managed to get everyone a small session of puja and offerings. There were small batches of people in 20-30 people group and everyone had prayers and offering session of some 5 minutes.

Thats me in the center with my roomies Jay (left) and Ankur (right). We had a really great day and really look forward to visit there next year. And here are the details of the venue and programs held. It will most likely be the same venue next year.